


how to rot in a dungeon

by tigerbox



Category: 1PUNCH (Band), iKON (Kpop)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6163876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerbox/pseuds/tigerbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>hanbin reminds jaewon of someone. except that hanbin is more dictator-like. so jaewon decides to write a story about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how to rot in a dungeon

  
  
  
Jaewon is familiar with having a second shadow: younger, smaller frame, hunched posture, constant tripping over his untied shoelaces. So he doesn't think much of Hanbin trailing him around in the practice rooms and rehearsal halls, hiding behind oversized plaids and half empty water bottles representing a placeholder mark.  
  
Jaewon likes Hanbin to a hawk. His eyes see all, and Jaewon is just an imperfect fraction at the edge of his eye. It doesn't bother Jaewon much, the way Hanbin looks at him, his eyes beady, lips pursed every single fucking time Jaewon bends his knee the wrong way in practice.  
  
And then, Hanbin starts to coach him, hard. Like harder than hard, so hard Jaewon doesn't remember he'd debuted once before in the first place. Knees need to be more bent, arms need to be more relaxed, stance to stance needs to be more rehearsed.  
  
In the first five minutes of meeting Hanbin, Jaewon comes to an irreversible conclusion: Hanbin would make a great drill sergeant. And that Hanbin's shoelace tripping was nothing like Samuel's.  
  
  
  
  
Jaewon learns to wear velcro sneakers to practice. In the next few months, he makes a promise to invest in stocks of it.  
  
  
  
  
Jaewon thinks he took Samuel for granted. His never ending chutzpah to help him get the moves right, his braggy smile anytime Jaewon belatedly learned a step so they could dance in sync, the soft feel of his baby hand holding his in reassurance when Jaewon would go up the wall in frustration. Hanbin, while having an innate skill to conjure choreography and execute it, was lousy when it came to the concept of patience.  
  
Jaewon tries to master the moon walk after watching Hanbin slick from one side of the wall to the other, hands in his pockets, eyes closed. He dances like he's sleeping. When Jaewon tries to imitate, his knees buckle and somehow he's dancing in the other direction.  
  
Jaewon wipes a slick of sweat from his brow before looking back to the mirror where Hanbin stands unfazed with his arms crossed, unable to emote. When Hanbin commands, his voice is nasally, lacking diction.  
  
"Do it again."  
  
  
  
To be brutally truthful, Jaewon hears Hanbin's voice in his sleep. It gives him nightmares.  
  
  
  
But soon they discover they have more in common interest - the recording studio.  
  
  
  
  
"Hey," Hanbin says, entering the recording studio. He always opens with this, Jaewon realizes, his snapback placed backwards so tightly on his head his veins bulge out, purple and sickly.  
  
"You're going to go bald if you keep wearing your hat like that."  
  
"I think the excessive bleach every comeback will kill my hair first. I stayed up last night mixing our beats. Here." Hanbin hands, not tosses, Jaewon a purple USB cord, expectantly waiting until Jaewon plugs it into his computer. Somehow, over time, he's gotten used to Hanbin bossing him around. Like he is one of his members, his little cadet.  
  
"Thoughts?" Hanbin bites his lips, a bundle of nerves, looking at Jaewon eagerly, not even waiting until the track concludes. He does this every time, coming up to Jaewon so close in the tight studio quarters that Jaewon can precisely tell what Hanbin has for lunch the day of: store bought ramen and a kid's sized bag of hot chips.  
  
Jaewon takes the headphones off and debates on what to tell Hanbin. Honestly the taste of bitter swarms his mouth most days. If Hanbin works on a piece for a week, the song is quality, when Hanbin works on a piece overnight for a mere three hours, the song is quality, if he makes a piece on the spot, the song is quality. Anything the kid touches is magic.  
  
"It's decent," Jaewon rolls his shoulders around like it doesn't matter much. Hanbin still keeps his eyes focused on Jaewon, making him uneasy.  
  
"Elaborate please."  
  
"I like it."  
  
Hanbin makes an undecipherable sound, turning his attention away from Jaewon and on to the computer where the ' _to be continued_ ' of their next composition remains. There's an indent on the end of Jaewon's sleeve, the fabric all rumpled up from where Hanbin has tugged it in nervous form.  
  
  
  
  
They compose together most days, when Hanbin isn't off gallivanting in Japan with his members or when he isn't trudging Jaewon back and fro from the practice room until Jaewon's legs give out and he cries for an hour's worth of rest in mercy. The Ikon hiatus is killing Hanbin in boredom, and by extension, Jaewon.  
  
"You need more experience." Hanbin attempts to advise Jaewon one day in the studio. Jaewon stifles a laugh, because Hanbin, of all people, has the audacity to say it.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Your lyrics. They're stilted. It's the same story over and over again."  
  
This time Jaewon does laugh. Really loudly. He laughs so hard his voice echoes throughout the room, bouncing off the noise guards taped on to the walls. Hanbin looks at him quizzically, genuinely confused.  
  
"What's so funny?"  
  
"Have YOU ever been in love, Hanbin?"  
  
Jaewon tosses a coin across the room, hitting the tower of soda cans they compiled straight into the middle so that they all fall down with a loud clatter. Hanbin, pointedly, never gives Jaewon an answer.  
  
  
  
  
Jaewon thinks of asking Hanbin one day why he's the first one at YG who reaches out to him, gives him so much of his undivided attention. The light in the restaurant is low, but Jaewon can see all the premature worry lines Hanbin has better this way. Hanbin shrugs, barely looking up from his perfectly rolled wrap of samgupysal, neatly lining it up in his mouth. Hanbin eats like a trained raptor, Jaewon decides.  
  
"YG ceo-nim asked me to keep an eye out on you. Didn't want you to get lonely in the basement."  
  
There's a piece of lettuce stuck in Hanbin's teeth, but Jaewon doesn't tell him.

 

 

Writing, Jaewon figures, is much like composing rap lyrics. A narrow minded expression summarized in a verse, expressing opinions with word pieces. And Hanbin is a good subject.  
  
He starts the story slow, almost like he's tracing a portrait of Hanbin in a sketchbook. Observing him small, discreet, in between writing sessions, when Hanbin's so focused on organizing their beats he barely notices Jaewon not contributing anything worthwhile.  
  
It's the pathetic story of an eighteen year old man who's never even said hello to someone of the opposite sex.  
  
"What the fuck is that?" Hanbin hovers over Jaewon once, much like Samuel used to, center above his right ear, just as Jaewon feels himself about to doze off in a Sunday daze. In a state of vulnerability, Jaewon's left his notebook open and the words are jumping out of the page in his sloppy writing like a deformed eye socket.  
  
_'hanbin lacks the nuance to understand the social perimeters of dating, let alone the allures of being sexual and what it inhibits someone to do in expanding their life's worth. furthermore, hanbin is willfully lacking in the desire to explore anything intimate with anyone, most content with hiding himself in a public bathroom stall and jacking off to internet porn pictures on his phone of clandestinely dressed female idols he'd never get the courage to actually speak to-'_  
  
"WHAT THE FUCK?"

There's a moment of hesitation on Hanbin's part, his mouth open so wide in fury and shock, a city's worth of flies could conglomerate inside. Jaewon sees a flicker of light in Hanbin's beady's eyes, assumes Hanbin is going to rip his notebook in shreds, but in a surprise move, Hanbin keeps it out of Jaewon's reach and then runs for the door with it.  
  
Jaewon runs so fast down the hall, he doesn't even remember breathing. Hanbin's better at running than he is, months of breathing practice for concerts coming in to function and soon all Jaewon can see is the back of Hanbin's snapback several steps ahead from each corner throughout the building. He makes it past the remodeled cafeteria and through the practice room hall space before he realizes exactly where Hanbin is going and doubles back.  
  
  
  
  
It's like a cliché, story as old as time for trainees to head to the rooftop and grab a smoke, but there Hanbin is, at the most far edged corner, clutching the notebook in his shaky heads, devouring the pages so quickly he probably can't process what he's reading. He's got a cigarette in his hands, borrowed from the other two trainees sitting on the rooftop far on the other side, them huddled so close together, in awed whispers that Ikon's B.I bummed a cigarette from them of all people. Jaewon shakes his head, because Hanbin doesn't hold the cigarette right as always, because he's the worst bad ass there ever is, and because Hanbin doesn't even smoke.  
  
"This reads more like a thesis than anything. You planning to apply for college?" Hanbin doesn't even turn to look at Jaewon. Jaewon takes a rock and throws it over the edge of the building, wondering in delay if it's going to hit someone down below. He walks up to Hanbin, snatching the cigarette out of his hand instead of the notebook, taking a long inhale of it. He can hear the other trainees whispering to each other, the hisses sounding so violent in the summer air.  
  
"Not really, no."  
  
"I can't believe you're writing a thesis on me."  
  
"It's not a thesis. It's just...a story. A rap essay."  
  
"It sounds like a shitty biography to me."  
  
"You were the one who told me I needed more experience writing!"  
  
"Not about me, hyung. And my lack of a love life."  
  
Jaewon take a last huff of the cigarette and then stamps it out with his sneaker. Looking down at the velcro, he reminisces. About the good old days with floppy laces. Samuel. With Samuel he never had to worry about the little things. Girls. Love. Sex.  
  
"Do you want me to give you a pep talk about the birds and the bees?" Jaewon punches Hanbin on the shoulder, batting his eyelashes, hopeful Hanbin can crack a smile. Instead, Hanbin walks past him to the rooftop door, shoving the notebook into Jaewon's opens arms for a dramatic finale.  
  
"I dog eared the page I really enjoyed reading. Thanks for that."  
  
Jaewon flips open the page as soon as Hanbin exits the roof, practically cringing at his own penmanship mocking him, the words of his thesis coming together like something real vicious.

 _'hanbin is a virgin that needs to get laid.'_  
  
  
  
  
Jaewon is not the best at apologies and it doesn't surprise him when Hanbin doesn't accept his breakfast burrito or dozen of red roses. The roses sit idly at the computer station and Jaewon rips a petal for every minute that Hanbin refuses to look away from the computer. Soon they are sitting in a room littered full of petals beneath their office chairs.  
  
"Well isn't this romantic?"  
  
"Shut up. I'm trying to focus."  
  
"So am I."  
  
Hanbin tosses Jaewon a pity look, if anything. Still, Jaewon takes it with accepting glee, it being the first time Hanbin acknowledges him all morning. With Samuel, all he'd have to do was buy him a cheeseburger and nuzzle his head and Samuel would forgive him on the spot for being late to practice or just being a grown up hormonal prick. Oh, Samuel. Jaewon rests his elbow on the computer desk and brings his head forward so he's level with the computer. He gets a headache from being to close to the external speakers, but he doesn't mind. Hanbin starts to twitch the left side of his face and shifts his snapback around so that most of his forehead is covered now.  
  
"We'd work a lot faster hyung, if you actually, you know, worked?"  
  
"Do you want me to have sex with you as an apology?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Okay, fine. How about just a kiss to help you out? For your sexual frustration research?"  
  
"Again, what?"  
  
Hanbin puts the mouse down, his eyebrows stitched under his cap. Jaewon swats down Hanbin's bewildered hands in the air, holding them briefly but tight before leaning forward and giving Hanbin a quick peck on the lips, so short Jaewon wonders if Hanbin even feels it right with his lack of a reaction. It's not romantic, it's a lame apology at that, and Hanbin focuses back to the computer so rapidly that it's like Jaewon's not even there. He shrugs, picking up some of the stray petals on the floor, blowing them with his open mouth in Hanbin's general direction.  
  
"You've got to admit, the beats on the song sound better. Don't they?"  
  
  
  
  
Jaewon sort of expects it, a week later when Hanbin pulls him by the knots on his sweatshirt and shoves him into the corner of one of the studios. There's cameras in there but Hanbin's calculated this beforehand, angling Jaewon in such a position that only their sneakers show. He gives Jaewon a menacing look, one like an offended beagle, snout huffed up, nostrils flared, very highly attractive.  
  
"Just so you know, I'm imagining you with boobs."  
  
"You want me to grab some Kleenex and stuff my sweater?"  
  
"Shut up, hyung. Are you going to hold this over my head forever if I kiss you?"  
  
"Probably."  
  
Hanbin loosens his fists on Jaewon's sweatshirt and Jaewon feels his tight posture relaxing, disappointed. He tosses his head, placing loose fingers over Hanbin's tense ones, calmly.  
  
"Take off your snapback first."  
  
Hanbin's unwashed hair ravels beneath the red hat. It's longer than Jaewon remembers, sticking in every sort of direction, and Hanbin waves a jittery hand through it trying to mat it before giving up and leaning in towards Jaewon. Jaewon tries not to laugh, because they are essentially the same height for the most part, but Hanbin's trying to counter him, leaning on his tip toes to press Jaewon down and get a better angle, cramming his forehead into Jaewon's left ear, his mouth parting way too early for anything to constitute as an acceptable kiss.  
  
"Stop snickering hyung. You're taking the romance out of this."  
  
"Just so you know, this wouldn't be any easier for you if I was a girl," Jaewon mocks, suddenly taking lead, gently pressing Hanbin back out of his chokehold and making their position an even height. He feels Hanbin unravel a bit through his sweatshirt and takes him in for a kiss then, their mouths barely titled, chins lifted, noses locked. Jaewon keeps pressing in, at full force with the thickness of his bottom lip, and his stomach does a little dip when he can hear Hanbin let out a childlike moan in approval, voice all breathy and wanton, lips indecent to the touch.  
  
It's not anything long, and it's sort of sloppy, because Jaewon is leading it and he's always a bit horny when it comes to kissing, and Jaewon can feel how hungry Hanbin is for more when they pull apart, Hanbin slightly disappointed that it's over so soon. He looks at Jaewon with his beady eyes, open, dreamlike, and Jaewon resists taking advantage of the situation to lean in for another one. He taps his foot, grinning like an ass, waiting for a rating on a scale of one to ten.  
  
"So?"  
  
"This better not be a chapter in your book."  
  
  
  
  
_'hanbin caresses yami's breasts with a steady hand like an expert, like he's done this before. his hair waves around handsomely in the wind, and yami's the luckiest girl alive when hanbin comes down and kisses her on the lips like a lion on the prowl. when they make love, they orgasm together and yami's soft purrs of delight can be heard throughout the village of the sleepyhead commoners.'_  
  
"You're just throwing bones at me at this point."  
  
"Do you want me to make novel Hanbin have a boner?"  
  
"Very funny hyung. You will change the name of the character if you ever get published right?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
Hanbin, weirdly enough becomes nicer to Jaewon in rehearsals. It's like they've always been friends. He holds Jaewon's hands when they walk through the hallways down to the practice room, almost skipping some days, leading the way. Jaewon even thinks he sees a glimmer of a smile sometimes.  
  
"Hey, now hold on," he says, stopping Hanbin before Hanbin gets the idea of getting matching tattoos engraved in his mind. Hanbin looks back at him, hammy, dork mode, innocent. It kind of makes Jaewon feel something. "You realize this doesn't make us boyfriends or whatever, right?"  
  
This time it's Hanbin laughing. Loudly. He still holds Jaewon's hands but it's more condescending now, like he's a preschooler that needs to be patted on the head for going to the bathroom by themselves correctly. His hands feel rigid almost, stern, misleading, and Jaewon wants to retract his, except that Hanbin doesn't let him, taking Jaewon into the recording studio where a stack of their compositions sit high, waiting to be finished.  
  
"I asked that new trainee out. And she said yes. All thanks to you." Hanbin is smiling, Jaewon realizes. Chiclet teeth shining from one corner of his mouth to the order. Hanbin begins to leaf through the sheets, finding the song they last worked on and begins to absentmindedly draw up some chords on the spot, whatever he hums already sounding finessed.  
  
Jaewon crosses his arms, skeptical.  
  
"You uh, copied the kiss on her? And then she fell for you like that?"  
  
Two unopened soda cans sit seductively next to them and Hanbin offers one politely to Jaewon, the kindest of gestures. Jaewon feels his heart blacken with offense.  
  
"No, dumbass. I took off my snapback before I asked her out. She said she could never could tell if I had any sincerity or soul with my veins always popping out of my forehead." Hanbin leans over again, commandeering Jaewon to sit down besides him next to the computer, rough hands warm and unfamiliar on his. Hanbin simultaneously plays the song for them to listen and then talks over it, winking at Jaewon all the same. It's moments like this when Jaewon realizes that Hanbin has a personality.  
  
"By the way hyung, her tits are like this big---"  
  
Jaewon doesn't know if he's supposed to feel hurt or amazed by Hanbin only letting go of his hands to demonstrate the magnitude of a trainee's breasts size.  
  
  
  
  
It's easier than he remembers to find the number. Guess he memorized it over time in his head, those nine digits blinking up like they used to several times daily, the only pre-saved number in his contacts on his old phone. He debates calling, then settles with a text. Jaewon was always better with words, lyrics; the written form. He settles with Hanbin's favorite word to say.  
  
_'hey.'_  
  
Samuel replies within the minute, emojis practically imploding Jaewon's anticipating heart.  
  
' _hyuuuung. miss you~ HEART HEART HEART SMILEY FACE_ '  
  
Then after a minute because Jaewon can't think of anything good to respond back:  
  
_'hyung. how's yg?'  
  
'different. new.'  
  
'do you like it?'  
  
'yeah. i guess.'  
  
'do you miss me?'_  
  
Jaewon tries to think of all the ways he could tell Samuel he does, anything from a heart emoji, to a rapped confession, to a rough draft on the novel about Hanbin that Samuel was still too young to read. Hanbin loops his head from around the corner of the break room, staring at Jaewon as he texts before he coughs politely, wanting attention. Hanbin looks cuter like this, inquisitive, playful, head not buried behind a computer or mirrored room for twenty two hours of the day.  
  
"I finished the composition hyung. Want to come hear it?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"You alright? You're looking all weird. Like you're thinking too much."  
  
"Must have learned it from you," Jaewon snickers. Hanbin walks over to him as Jaewon stands up, dusting off his pants while Hanbin shoves him lightly. Then, Hanbin does something unconventional and kisses Jaewon square on the lips. When their lips meet, it's soft, curt, but oddly nice. Hanbin must have been practicing on his belly button or something because he doesn't lean on his tip toes this time, and when he pulls away from Jaewon they can look each other straight in the eye, direct and haunting eye contact. Jaewon breaks the eye contact first, his stomach all jittery from Hanbin's surprise present.  
  
"Thanks, hyung."  
  
"I should be thanking you. For finishing the song. Well all of them, actually."  
  
Hanbin merely smirks, tugging at Jaewon's hand again, motioning for him to follow. Now this is something Jaewon is all too familiar with. They make their way back to the recording studio, the percussion and loud synthesizer of their duet trickling down the hallway in a bit of a tease.  
  
"Think you can give me a hand on how to have sex with her next? A literal lesson would be great."  
  
"A figurative lesson on paper would probably be safer, Hanbin."  
  
Hanbin hums along to the song tunes, making up some nonsensical rap about spaghetti and pussy on the spot. Jaewon just shakes his head, pulling his phone out out of his sweater pocket, smiling to himself as the touch pad keys light up with every letter he presses before he hits send and trots back into the studio with an eager Hanbin.  
  
_'all the time.'_


End file.
